Freakonomics Radio

  • 348. Is the Government More Entrepreneurial Than You Think?

    We all know the standard story: our economy would be more dynamic if only the government would get out of the way. The economist Mariana Mazzucato says we’ve got that story backward. She argues that…


  • 347. Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant

    Kenji Lopez-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way that everyday cooks can appreciate. Then he dared to start his own restaurant — and discovered…


  • 346. Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet

    The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technologists say that human ingenuity can solve just about any problem. A debate that’s been around for decades has become a shouting match.…


  • 345. How to Be Happy

    The U.N.’s World Happiness Report — created to curtail our unhealthy obsession with G.D.P. — is dominated every year by the Nordic countries. We head to Denmark to learn the secrets of this happiness epidemic…


  • 344. Who Decides How Much a Life Is Worth?

    After every mass shooting or terrorist attack, victims and survivors receive a huge outpouring of support — including a massive pool of compensation money. How should that money be allocated? We speak with the man…


  • A Conversation With PepsiCo C.E.O. Indra Nooyi (Ep. 316 Update)

    One of the world’s biggest and best-known companies just announced that its C.E.O. would be stepping down in the fall. We interviewed her as part of our series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.,” and…


  • 343. An Astronaut, a Catalan, and Two Linguists Walk Into a Bar…

    In this live episode of “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” we learn why New York has skinny skyscrapers, how to weaponize water, and what astronauts talk about in space. Joining Stephen J. Dubner as…


  • 342. Has Lance Armstrong Finally Come Clean?

    He was once the most lionized athlete on the planet, with seven straight Tour de France wins and a victory over cancer too. Then the doping charges caught up with him. When he finally confessed…


  • 341. Why We Choke Under Pressure (and How Not To)

    It happens to just about everyone, whether you’re going for Olympic gold or giving a wedding toast. We hear from psychologists, economists, and the golfer who some say committed the greatest choke of all time.


  • 340. People Aren’t Dumb. The World Is Hard.

    You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. The founder of behavioral economics describes his unlikely route to…